Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/133

Edwards to identify him with certainty. The name is a common one. One Thomas Edwards, of a Berkshire family, became fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1579, proceeded B.A. on 20 March 1682, B.C.L. on 19 Nov. 1584, and D.C.L. on 17 Dec. 1590. He was afterwards, according to Wood, chancellor to the Bishop of London, and gave a few books to the Bodleian Library and to Christ Church.

A second Thomas Edwards (probably of Queens' College, Cambridge, B.A. 1578-9, M.A. 1582) became rector of Langenhoe, Essex, on 1 Oct. 1618; a third, the author of 'Gangræna' is noticed below; a fourth was buried in Westminster Abbey on 21 April 1624; a fifth had a son of the same name, who entered the Inner Temple in 1647; a sixth, a schoolmaster, is the subject of a poem in the Tanner MSS.

[Rev. W. E. Buckley's Cephalus and Procris (Roxburghe Club), 1882, contains all accessible information.]  EDWARDS, THOMAS (1599–1647), puritan divine and author of 'Gangraena,' born in 1599, was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and in due course proceeded to the two degrees in arts. On 14 July 1623 he was incorporated at Oxford University, but he continued to reside at Cambridge, where, after taking orders, he was appointed a university preacher, and earned the name of 'Young Luther.' In February 1627 he preached a sermon in which he counselled his hearers not to seek carnal advice when in doubt; declared he would testify and teach no other doctrine though the day of judgment were at hand, and was committed to prison until he could find bonds for his appearance before the ecclesiastical courts. After being frequently summoned before the courts, he on 31 March 1628 received an order to make a public recantation of his teaching in St. Andrew's Church, with which he complied on 6 April, a document to that effect being drawn up and signed by the curate of the parish. Edwards did not remain much longer at Cambridge, and in the following year one of his name, who was in all probability the same, was licensed to preach in St. Botolph's, Aldgate, London (, Repert. Eccl. i. 916). His nonconformist tendencies very soon excited attention, and it must have been shortly after his appointment that he found himself among those 'suppressed or suspended' by Laud (, Cant. Doome, ed. 1646, p. 573). On regaining his liberty to preach, he recommenced his campaign against 'popish innovations and Arminian tenets' at various city churches, at Aldermanbury, and in Coleman Street. In July 1640, on the delivery at Mercers' Chapel of a sermon which he himself describes (Gangr. i. 75) as 'such a poor sermon as never a sectary in England durst have preached in such a place and at such a time,' an attachment was issued against him, and he was prosecuted in the high commission court, but with what result is not known. In alluding to this incident Edwards summarises his controversial attitude at this time in the following words: 'I never had a canonicall coat, never gave a peny to the building of Paul's, took not the canonicall oath, declined subscription for many years before the parliament (though I practised the old conformity), would not give ne obolum quidem to the contributions against the Scots, but dissuaded other ministers; much lesse did I yeeld to bow at the altar, and at the name of Jesus, or administer the Lord's Supper at a table turned altarwise, or bring the people up to rails, or read the Book of Sports, or highly flatter the archbishop in an epistle dedicatory to him, or put articles into the high commission court against any.' When the parliament took the government into their own hands, and the presbyterian party was in the ascendant, Edwards came forward as one of their most zealous supporters, not only preaching, praying, and stirring up the people to stand by them, but even advancing money (ib. pt. i. p. 2). He refused, he tells us (ib. pt. iii. pref.), many great livings, preferring to preach in various localities where he considered his services were most needed. Christchurch, London, Hertford, Dunmow, and Godalming were among the places which he more frequently visited, and at one time he was in the habit of making three or four journeys a week between the last-named town and London. As a rule he refused to be paid for his sermons, and he boasted that, notwithstanding his constant preaching, he had for the two years 1645-6 received no more than 40l. per annum. He could, however, afford to be indifferent in the matter of payment, since he had married a lady who brought with her a considerable fortune. As soon as the independents began to come prominently forward Edwards attacked them with unexampled fury from the pulpit, and in 1644 published 'Antapologia, or a full Answer to the Apologeticall Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughes, Mr. Bridge, Members of the Assembly of Divines,' wherein are handled many of the controversies of these times, containing a violent indictment of the divines named on the title-page, but mild and reasonable by comparison with his next work. This was 'Gangraena; or a Catalogue and Discovery of many Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies, and pernicious Practices of the